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Scientists make carbon nanotubes suitable for CPU cooling

Jan

26

2014

Scientists at the Berkeley Lab have a technique for efficiently cooling of processors developed by making use of carbon nanotubes. Use With the technique, the discharge of heat from a metal surface to improve the nanotubes with a six. Factor

Of carbon nanotubes has been known that they can conduct heat. Well The problem is that they interact with other hard materials, which is an obstacle to practical applications such as chip cooling. Namely the weak interaction with other materials ensures a high heat resistance, and that detracts from the ability to dissipate heat.

Intel moved to Berkeley Lab to work together to tackle the problem. The researchers from the Materials Sciences Division of Berkeley Lab using organic molecules to distinguish between the carbon nanotubes and metal such as aluminum, gold or copper. Covalent bonds The nanotubes are first produced as vertical rows nanotubes on a substrate of silicon wafers. The connection between the nanotubes and the metal was so strong that the nanotubes of the growth substrate could be pulled. After the formation of the linkages That degree of adhesion resulted in a six times as efficient discharge of heat than has hitherto been achieved with carbon nanotubes on metal.

“You can see the resistance as an additional distance that the heat must travel through the material,” says Sumanjeet Kaur of the research team, “With carbon nanotubes, the thermal resistance interface creates a distance of about 40 microns on each side of the layer tubes. With our technique, we have managed to decrease so that the extra distance is about seven microns. “resistance interface

Scientists are now trying to be more nanotubes to attach themselves to the metal, because with the present technique may still be that a majority of the tube does not connect. Making the covalent bonds is done in gas vapor or liquid chemicals at low temperature, making it suitable in theory, for deployment in the current method of producing chips.